Candidates have limited control in an interview. They cannot control the questions they will be asked nor can they control the manner by which employers will rank and weigh their responses. They cannot control interviewer bias.

Despite such noble intentions, candidates are frequently rejected or hired for other criteria. Over the past several months, we have had candidates eliminated by clients not for failing to check off the exhaustive list of requisite experience, skills or competencies but rather...

Many hiring managers read resumes in a cursory manner. They review the companies and roles that candidates have filled over their careers while making note of education levels, stability, the quality/consistency of overall career trajectory, and purported skills, knowledge and competencies.

Executive search processes and their outcomes fascinate me to no end. I enjoy trying to figure out how organizations determine their requirements and how well the outcomes line up to them. The recent decision to hire Ron Tavener as OPP Commissioner is a case in point.

In our last post we discussed the temptations facing unemployed executives to move with extreme haste in finding a new role. Conceptualizing job loss as akin to falling off a horse they associate ‘down time' with unproductive, time-consuming activity.

Every week, without exception, we meet executives who have jumped back on their horses in this very manner and embraced a ‘spray and pray' job search strategy. For some it may work like a charm but for the majority, dare I say the vast majority, it is the wrong approach.

The message for companies is pay attention, respect personal dignity, gives candidates a voice and some control over the process, and treat them as partners in an important relationship. Not only will companies have a higher chance of hiring them, on terms possibly more favorable, but as it turns out, keeping them.

Why Your Reputation Matters

May 15, 2009

Headhunters are paid to find candidates who will thrive in their client organizations. Certainty is elusive so the promise of success is always weighed against the probability of failure. Risk is the key variable to be controlled.

Headhunters manage risk in several ways. They journey to the past to predict the most likely future. They probe candidate accomplishments, setbacks, personalities, behaviors and lessons learned. They cobble together themes and narratives and put forth hypotheses as to fit with their clients’ needs.

Headhunters also solicit external data points to corroborate or contradict their hypotheses. Scores of people are contacted for recommendations, opinions, and insights into companies, industry landscapes, the movement of talent and specific executives. Wary of any one source of intelligence, headhunters do pay attention when executives are repeatedly lauded as stars or flagged as underperformers. An executive’s reputation is the aggregate of these general estimations.

Reputations live on the edges and in the shadows. They speak of the person but they do not necessarily speak to the essence of the person. Reputations are contextual, and sensitive to the perch from which they are offered. In their aggregate though, reputations are more accurate than not, and they matter. Reputations add color and provide clues in understanding an individual. They can also comfort and confuse. Great, consistent reputations grease the wheel of recommending candidates, while poor or mixed reputations demand effort to unravel the strands that weave through them. The greater the effort required to sort through a person’s reputation, the less likely the headhunter will assume the risk of promoting them to their client. The same can be said for the client firm contemplating a hiring decision.